users of sechem

[figgy jr]

the sechem flourish usage dose guide is a bit confusing...my tanks total volume is 72l, but dose is at 1-2ml for 200l....confusing to measure. anyone use for their 2 ft tank.

[theodore]

If your tank has med-high light (>3 WPG) for at least 9hrs a day, you can start with the following :

Tank Volume = 72.0 L
Dosage = 2.0 mL
# of dose(s) per week = 2.0

At this dosage and frequency, you will be adding :

Element ….. PPM (per dose) ….. PPM (per week)
Total Nitrogen (N) ….. 0.01111 ….. 0.02222
Avail. Phosphate (as P2O5) ….. 0.00278 ….. 0.00556
Soluble Potash (K2O) ….. 0.01667 ….. 0.03333
Calcium (Ca) ….. 0.04822 ….. 0.09644
Magnesium (Mg) ….. 0.03206 ….. 0.06411
Sulfur (S) ….. 0.07703 ….. 0.15406
Boron (B) ….. 0.00267 ….. 0.00533
Bromine (Br) ….. 0.00003 ….. 0.00006
Chlorine (Cl) ….. 0.31944 ….. 0.63889
Cobalt (Co) ….. 0.00011 ….. 0.00022
Copper (Cu) ….. 0.00003 ….. 0.00006
Iodine (I) ….. 0.00003 ….. 0.00006
Iron (Fe) ….. 0.10794 ….. 0.21589
Manganese (Mn) ….. 0.00347 ….. 0.00694
Molybdenum (Mo) ….. 0.00042 ….. 0.00083
Nickel (Ni) ….. 0.00010 ….. 0.00020
Rubidium (Rb) ….. 0.00003 ….. 0.00006
Sodium (Na) ….. 0.02064 ….. 0.04128
Tin (Sn) ….. 0.00001 ….. 0.00002
Vanadium (V) ….. 0.00001 ….. 0.00002
Zinc (Zn) ….. 0.00011 ….. 0.00022
Arginine ….. 0.00444 ….. 0.00889
Glutamate ….. 0.02500 ….. 0.05000
Lysine ….. 0.00833 ….. 0.01667
Tyrosine ….. 0.00528 ….. 0.01056
Choline ….. 0.00011 ….. 0.00022
Inositol ….. 0.00031 ….. 0.00061
Biotin ….. 0.00011 ….. 0.00022
Niacin ….. 0.00694 ….. 0.01389
Pantothenate ….. 0.00194 ….. 0.00389
Riboavin ….. 0.00056 ….. 0.00111
Thiamine ….. 0.00056 ….. 0.00111
Vitamin B12 ….. 0.00003 ….. 0.00005
Vitamin C ….. 0.27778 ….. 0.55556

NOTE : Every tank is different - plant selection, lighting (intensity and coverage), photoperiod, etc. Spend some time to adjust your dosage (macros and micros) based on test results and observation.

One more thing. Seachem Flourish only handles your micros. Depending on your setup, you may need to supplement K, P, N, Ca and Mg.

[Plantbrain]

The maximum uptake is = to the max light in a densely packed tank.
This came out to be about 3x a week 5mls in a 20 gallon tank.

So a 40 gallon would need at the max, 10mls 3x a week, you can dose daily if you want etc by adding 30mls/7 days etc.
2-3x a week dosing is best for traces, you can go once a week if the tank is less than 2w/gal.
Same volume, 5mls for a 20 gal but with less light, you dose less frequently.

This is for Flourish , tropica master grow, Sera, Kent products.

You can also add a 1-2ml spike mid week of Flourish Iron if you want in addition to the 5mls of Flourish.

This is a better method than testing Fe.
This dosing was determined by supplying the plants with optimal CO2/NPK and GH, then adding more andf more Traces till no positive plant response was noted then went 2x beyond that to make sure.

The recommendations are conservative since not everyone has CO2 etc. Both Greg of SeaChem and Claus from Tropica have told me this personally.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[vinz]

The Seachem Flourish now has a new recommended dosage: 5ml to 250l. Updated on both the new pakaging and website. The compostion is the same.

Tom,

The composition (or concentration) of TMG and Flourish are very different (unless there's something seriously wrong in my calculations). The differences is so much that for some components, TMG is more then 10 times stronger. Why do you recommend the same dosage for both?

[theodore]

[quote:dbc9c0812c="vinz"]The Seachem Flourish now has a new recommended dosage: 5ml to 250l. Updated on both the new pakaging and website. The compostion is the same.
[/quote:dbc9c0812c]

Seachem's new recommended dosage is close to what I would dose for a high-light, densely planted tank. I will cut the dosage by 1/2 for low-light setups.

[figgy jr]

after having iron levels at 0 after using jbl ferropol, switchesd to secham flourish and added twice the recommended dose,, 5the resukts are as follows.::

iron (fe): 0.5-1.0mg/l
ph: 7.0-7.5
kh: 5

wat do u think....issit alright??

[PeterGwee]

Forget about the iron measurement...You are not going to make or break a planted tank with that. CO2 and NO3 are the big players here and are the ones that would hurt the plants the most if not enough.

Your CO2 is too low..you need to get more into the system. Drop the pH down to 6.7-6.8 for your KH.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[figgy jr]

the problem is that my normal tap water ph is 7.5. after increasing the co2, i manage to drop the ph only to 7.0...so its quite difficult for me to acheive the desired ph as i always find the ph quite flactuating......anway to add, i think iron is importent for my tank, as i ahve plants that are very demanding in nutirents and before i always have these plants dying but now after adding seham, the plants are growing vigrously....well only the ph is the set back i face now.

[PeterGwee]

Using a trace measurement and iron as proxy with a test kit is simply plain wrong.

PMDD has macro nutrients in it. These are far more critical to plant growth and much less problematic to test for(PO4, NO3 etc) than a funny trace metal which eludes any test kit.

I don;t have an all in one mix. I add the macros dry and the traces I mix 500mls of H2O with 2 tablespoons of the dry CMS trace mix for a trace mix.

The issue at hand here is what is enough bio available iron? Not much. But the issue also has another problem, iron complexes with about 20 other ions in solution. This is not including organic compounds. Hoe much is enough then? Test are influenced by these complexes.

Testing for iron after 12 hrs often yields no iron. Maintaining any sort of residual is a lesson in futility.

Main thing is to dose traces after everything else is in a good range, therefore dosing macro nuteient separately is wise choice and presents less math problems and chemistry errors which folks are prone to.

Add 5mls of traces to every 80 liters of tank 2-3x a week depending on plant load, light.
If you have low light, less than 2w/gal, try once a week.

Add the other nutrients, like KNO3, K2SO4 etc dry.

Regards,
Tom Barr

I think Tom Barr would explain it better than me on this subject.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Plantbrain]

The chelators for iron are different in each product. A few other differences.

But it want a moere precise measurement, you can do the follwoing test.

Make sure the CO2 is high, the K, PO4, NO3 and fish load/feeding routine are good, stable etc.

Then start off by seeing how the plants respond to daily dosing of traces at lower levels(say the recommendations).
Do this for 3 weeks.
The differences often will be subtle.
Next 3 weeks, try adding 2x this amount
Next 3 weeks, try adding 3x this amount and then 4x this amount etc.

Each test you should dose for 3 weeks and note plant health.

When you notice that adding more no longer improves growth and you ahve gone at least 2x beyond this amount, back off and stick with this measurement.

Do NOT use Fe test kits, use volume of the trace added x frequency x Tank volume.
This is much more consistent/repeatable than test kits.

Each tank is different, some might use/need much less, but adding an excess does not do anything either(but is a little wasteful).

I stayed with the same volume of dosing for all the brands and it's worked pretty well. You might be able to use less/more depending on brand and your tank.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[figgy jr]

thanks bros, well the good news, my plants are blooming like nobody's buisness and the bad news...alge appeared on the tank glass..well time to get som suckers, minature to do the job now...thanks

[IUnknown]

Tom, I understand that for different light levels you adjust the frequency of the dose and not the concentration. So 5 mL flourish would be added once (<2 w/gal), twice (2-3 w/gal), three times (3+ watt), etc. For the plant density, is it the same? You just adjust the frequency but not the concentration. So would less than 50% plants reduce the number of doses a week?
Another question I had is wether or not sumps are included as the total volume of water, even if there are no plants or lights in the sump.

[PeterGwee]

IUnknown, Tom Barr's estimative index method does take into account of the amount of plant load, fish load, plant types, tap water conditions, type of lighting and amount of lighting when suggesting the frequency to dose. The amount to dose does include the sump volume if you have one.

Regards
Peter Gwee